Ernest Evans sources

Ernest Evans Biography:

Checker still performs now and was featured in a favorite advertisement for Nabisco’s Oreo cookies.

Checker’s family moved to Philadelphia, so when a young lad, he worked various jobs polishing shoes, selling ice and helping in a butcher’s store. Due to his large build, he got his nickname, Chubby, while employed as a teenager at Tony Anastazi’s Produce Shop. Having a natural gift for caricature, he loved impersonating the styles of his musical heroes Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. He started performing in churches as well as to the roads along with his singing group, The Quantrells, and soon brought the interest of music executives in Philadelphia.

Checker signed with Cameo-Parkway Records in 1959. His initial two singles, “The Group” and “Dancing Dinosaur” were minor hits. Cameo supported him to make his own version of “The Twist,” a tune originally composed and performed by Hank Ballard, that was already having small success on the graphs. But it was Checker’s variation and his related dance routine that gave the song new life. Actually, it was Dick Clark’s wife who came up with all the name Checker, a reference to the likeness involving the portly vocalist and Fats Domino.

As a dancing move, “The Twist” revolutionized popular culture by giving couples the liberty to break apart around the dance floor. An appearance on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand started Checker’s version of “The Twist” to the No. 1 Billboard position in September 1960. In January 1962, it topped the chart again. With this particular formidable accomplishment, “The Twist” became the first and only 45 single to ever appear in the No. 1 position in two different years.

Although Checker recorded many more tunes in the next years, none ever matched the success of “The Twist.” He also starred in two movies featuring the Turn sense, Twist Around the Clock (1961) and Do Not Knock the Twist (1962).

Leading advertisers also have taken up the “turn” theory. In the early 1990s, for example, Nabisco featured Checker twisting the Oreo cookie, resulting in among the organization ‘s most successful promotions ever.